


Heroes Don't Cut Ties

by nonbinarycoded



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-16
Packaged: 2018-11-01 05:16:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10915089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonbinarycoded/pseuds/nonbinarycoded
Summary: If Scanlan had been at all uncertain of his mental state, he would have thought he’d imagined it. But his time with Kaylie on the road had been better for his head than nearly anything else he’d done in the past several years, and that’s why his stomach knotted at the tense, hoarse whisper of,“Jenga,”clear as day into his right ear.(Even if it he’d imagined that, he couldn’t have imagined the eruption of voices cursing Vax’ildan’s name immediately following it.)-------Or, the one where Scanlan ends up accidentally sitting in on one last botched mission, whether he wants to or not.





	1. Chapter 1

If Scanlan had been at all uncertain of his mental state, he would have thought he’d imagined it. But his time with Kaylie on the road had been better for his head than nearly anything else he’d done in the past several years, and that’s why his stomach knotted at the tense, hoarse whisper of, " _Jenga_ ,” clear as day into his right ear.

(Even if it he’d imagined that, he couldn’t have imagined the eruption of voices cursing Vax’ildan’s name immediately following it.)

 _He’d cut his ties_ , he reminded himself, taking a long drink from the mug in front of him. Kaylie shot him a look and asked him something, but with the cacophony of seven other voices in his ear he couldn’t process a word. Funny, he used to be so good at that.

“What?”

“I asked if your ale’s bad too, you look like you just drank piss. This has to be the most watered down shit I’ve ever had—  you’d think they’d give better to the people that filled their tavern tonight.”

Scanlan gave a distracted hum in response, a vague affirmative to a question he’d only half heard. He was too busy trying to pick out voices, trying to figure out what was going on, trying to figure out why there were seven— _who the hell was the seventh, he didn’t recognize the voice, did they just make another fucking earring and hand it off to the first jackass to walk up and replace him—_ but all the voices went quiet when Vax spoke again in a strained whisper.

“I’m in the room with the balcony. It’s definitely this guy. Come get him before he finds me in the fucking wardrobe. He’s out in the hallway now, get in here and take him out before he walks in and finds me—”

The old, instinctive tug of a call to action almost made Scanlan stand up without thinking about it. He caught himself at the last moment possible, one hand braced on the table, the other hand reaching for his flute. When he realized what he was doing, he froze, mentally berating himself as he settled back down. Kaylie frowned at him this time.

“Alright, what’s going on? You’re jumpy.”

“I’m not jumpy, just— vigilant. This area of Wildmount is seedier than I expected.”

(“Don’t worry, we’ll be in there in just a second. I’m flying up to the balcony on my broom, Tary’s right behind me, everybody else is coming in the back door. You left it unlocked, didn’t you?”

“Of course I did, I’m not an idiot, now _please_ hurry, sister—”)

 _“Seedier!”_ Kaylie barked out a laugh. “You and me have been traveling with the people we’ve had around us for more than a year now, and you’re calling this place _seedy_? Dad, what’s really going on?”

“...You know when you just get those gut feelings that something’s wrong?”

“Yeah? What, you’re worried about this place? These are the comfiest beds we’ve had in a week.”

“I know, and I’m sorry. But you know I’m always going to teach you to trust those gut feelings—”

“Because I’m gonna regret not doing it when they turn out to be right,” Kaylie finished boredly. “I know. I’m just complaining. I trust you, dad.”

“I’m glad you do.”

The table lapsed into a comfortable silence, but the silence over the earring was much less comfortable. Worrying, more like. In that silence, Scanlan had time to think. The earrings only extended 500 feet; how the hell had they gotten within 500 feet of him? What the hell were they doing in Wildmount at all? It didn’t sound like they’d found him intentionally, but he still didn’t like that they’d just happened upon a job in a house just a mere 500 feet, apparently, from where he was staying. The coincidence was unsettling at best.

And who the _fuck_ was Tary?

Just as Scanlan opened his mouth to say something, the earring erupted into noise again. Seven panicked voices all began to shout over each other demanding answers and asking more questions in the same breath.

“—Felt my necklace go off, who the fuck—”

“—Traps down here that didn’t get disabled—”

“—Don’t fucking kill them, we need them alive—”

“—Friends ambushed us from a different room—”

“—It’s Pike, _Pike is down_ —”

“—I don’t care anymore, I’m taking them out—”

Pike is down.

He’d cut his ties.

 _It’s Pike, Pike is down_.

_He’d cut his fucking ties._

An eighth voice cut through the rest of them, sounding somehow simultaneously farther away and more real than the rest.

“Dad? Dad, what’s going on? You didn’t drink that much, sit up—”

Scanlan pulled his head up off the table. When had he let his head rest there? He gave a shaky sigh, and rested his hands, one white-knuckled around his flute, on the table.

“Alright, talk to me. Now. What the fuck’s going on?”

He could go help right now. Show up for a single act of heroism and then vanish again.

“...I’ll explain once we’re out of this fucking tavern. Come on, let’s go find somewhere at the other end of town. Maybe a different town altogether.”

They could manage without him, apparently.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One member of Vox Machina uses the earrings one more time that night, and Scanlan is just close enough to hear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the kind words on the first chapter, I was able to sit down and crank out this chapter in about 3 hours after reading all of the comments I got! Support like that really means a lot to any author, and I'm flattered to see it come my way :)

So, talking to Kaylie about what had happened had gone— Well. Scanlan had certainly  _ tried _ to keep it from blowing up.

_ “So they were in trouble and you didn’t even  _ do _ anything?” _

_ “I haven’t seen them in more than a year. They’ve been able to handle themselves before, and what was I supposed to do? Was I just supposed to leave you sitting alone in the tavern while I ran off to go jump into a fight I knew nothing about? I’m not like that anymore! That’s not what I fucking  _ do _ anymore!” _

_ “You looked  _ scared _ for them in there, dad. You looked like you knew something was wrong. How could you just sit there and listen to that? All the stories you told me about them— I thought you  _ cared _ about them! If this is how you’re going to act then why do you still have that earring on in the first place?”  _

Now she was curled up, back turned to him, snoring quietly. The second tavern and inn they’d relocated to, the Drunken Unicorn, wasn’t as nice as the first, but it was still a soft bed and a good meal— ‘soft’ and ‘good’ being relative terms. Scanlan wasn’t tired and knew he wasn’t sleeping any time soon, so sitting in a dark room stewing wasn’t going to do anything but work him up.

He decided to go for a walk.

The moon was high in the sky when he got outside; the tavern he’d had to cross through nearly empty. Scanlan knew he could defend himself if need be, so he let his feet carry him through moonlit, cobbled streets without paying much mind to where he was headed. He had only been in this town a couple days, and didn’t have the layout anywhere near memorized yet. He knew that there were several taverns, and that one was the Broken Bottle and one was the Drunken Unicorn. He knew that these taverns were at opposite ends of town.

It was late enough that the streets were almost entirely empty, save for the occasional wandering guard or citizen emptying a night’s worth of drinks onto a street corner. He’d always been reasonably good with keeping himself oriented and finding his way around, which is why he was surprised to find himself standing in front of the Broken Bottle. He hadn’t meant to come back here; he hadn’t thought he’d even been moving in this direction. He turned to leave; he’d hate for Kaylie to wake up without him there and get worried.

He was even more surprised to hear a small voice say, “Hey, Scanlan.”

He whipped around, but the tavern door was closed. There wasn’t even a window on the front of it to see out of— as far as he knew, he was completely alone. Pike shouldn’t be talking to him— 

That’s when he remembered the fucking earrings.

“I know you’re not gonna hear this, but I just wanted to tell you about my day, cause it’s been  _ pretty  _ crazy.” Her voice was quiet, her words slurring together. “Y’know, just to give you an update since the last time I did this.”

_ Oh gods, there had been a  _ last  _ time? How often had she done this, thinking he’d never hear? _

“So, all of Vox Machina and me, we had to go check some dude out for someone else, and see if he was involved in some— some sneaky— ...Y’know, I didn’t really understand it even when I was sober, I think it was some illegal noble stuff? You know, killing people, smuggling things—”

_ What had he just been fucking saying about rushing into fights he knew nothing about? Of course they hadn’t changed their ways at all, they were still doing stupid, dangerous things that were going to get them killed.  _

“Anyways, we had to go investigate him and knock him out to bring him back to the first guy, only we didn’t know he could cast fucking  _ spells,  _ and he had buddies hiding in the house that protected him— It was a really tough battle but we totally kicked ass— I mean, I went down once, but only for a few seconds! And we were all out of spells after the fight so I’m gonna sleep off what I can and get myself all patched up in the morning.”

Scanlan’s stomach dropped at that; he remembered how scary it had been to hear everyone else’s reactions to that. Her upbeat tone hardly fit what she was talking about.

He could walk away right now, and he wouldn’t have to hear the rest of this. If he took the earring out at the very least until he was back in his own room at the other inn, he’d be free of being forced to hear— 

He sat down against the side of the building.

“And besides, Grog brought me back up. Cause buddies help each other out!” God, he could just  _ hear _ the grin in her voice. He missed that grin. “An’ then we won cause we’re fucking great, and we brought the guy to the other guy, and we came back to find a place to stay and me and Grog had a drinking contest and I  _ won—  _ He’s passed out at the bar next to me right now. Man, the person who served us said if we’d gotten here a couple hours earlier we could’ve caught some people playing for the crowd here. She couldn’t remember their names but she said they were great— I bet they weren’t half as good as you are. I really miss your singing. An’ I’m getting really tired but I just thought I’d let you know that we got to Wildmount safely, and we’re all doing pretty okay for ourselves, and the bakery’s going good even though we’re not around to run it right now—”

_ Bakery? What bakery? _

“And we’re still kinda slow getting back into being all together again but it’s super easy now that we’re doing jobs for people—”

_ Again? Had they been apart since he’d left? _

“And I miss you a lot—”

_ Oh, no. _

Pike sounded close to tears that time, and getting closer the longer she talked. “We all do, I think… Grog especially. He’s the only other one that knows I do this and he said he was gonna give it a try cause he misses you a lot too. And you’ve got the other gatestone for a reason, if you ever wanna… I dunno, like, come say hi? An’ I’m probably too drunk to be doing this at this point cause I’m  _ really _ tired and Grog looks  _ really _ comfy on the bar but I just miss you a  _ lot, _ Scanlan, and—” she broke off to sniffle loudly, and Scanlan felt sick to his stomach. “I dunno. I’m glad you’re with your daughter. I’m glad she’s got such a good dad. Cause that’s  _ so important, _ you know, having a good family, one that doesn’t treat you badly or try to steal from your friends or… Or...”

The sentence was cut off by the sound of a broken off snore.

He hadn’t understood the ending at all, but that didn’t really matter. It mattered less than the rest of what she’d said, at least. He stared at the entrance to the tavern. He could go in there, wake Pike up, say hello to her and only her—

She’d never let him do that.

Still, his mind kept forcing him back to how she’d said she was hurt and everyone was out of spells. He’d swore wasn’t going to go back to just healing them whenever they asked, but—

Well, she hadn’t really  _ asked. _

And besides, it was Pike.

Scanlan circled around to the side of the building, where he found a window hanging ajar. His breath hitched when he saw them; Grog face down on the bar, Pike leaned over on Grog’s massive shoulder, both of them snoring loudly. Pike, from what Scanlan could see, was still roughed up. Bruises littered the upper half of her body, and she looked like she was boasting a pretty nasty shiner on her left eye. Scanlan could only wince at the thought of what she did to whoever caused that.

It took a couple of breaths to steady himself before he started to sing.

It was quiet, and under his breath; he didn’t want anyone to hear him. He sang a handful of lines from what he’d played that night, a ballad about a travelling band of heroes that got themselves into shit and always came out on top even though they were jackasses. Despite his quiet voice, the song carried itself into the tavern and across the room, and some of Pike’s wounds began to glow with a soft, purple light as they healed. Cuts closed, the black eye’s swelling went down. She looked much better by the time he finished.

With a sigh, Scanlan took in the sight of the pair at the bar one last time before turning around. He was mostly certain of the way back to the tavern he was staying in. And if he got lost, it was only 3 in the morning; he had plenty of time to find his way back. He’d get some rest with Kaylie, and the two would set off for another city in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I could write lyrics, I would have written a few and put them in the story while Scanlan was using Healing Words. But for the record, it was a long-ass ballad type song, where each rendition of the chorus embellished one of their cooler adventures while emphasizing that they're assholes. Each one of the verses focused on and described a different member of Vox Machina without ever actually naming them or the group, just "the rogue of this band" and "their barbarian brute" and on and on. He's played it at half the taverns he's been to and nearly all the little farming camps, so I'd love to at some point write something where Vox Machina hears someone singing it to themselves and freaks out trying to figure out where it came from.

**Author's Note:**

> This end note was a speculation on a sequel when I posted it, but thanks to all the kind words I got I wrote the second chapter the same night I posted the first! Thank you to everyone who commented!


End file.
